Biography
Mykhailo Ivanovych Krasnyk (b. 1959, village of Rodatychi, Lviv region) is a painter, graphic artist, and conservator.
1986–1993 – Member of the Shliakh [Path] art association; from 1994 – Member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine.
1975–1978 – Took private art lessons from Stepan Trush.
From 1977 – Works as a conservator-restorer at the Andrey Sheptytsky National Museum in Lviv.
From 1980 – Participates in all-Ukrainian and international art exhibitions.
Lives and works in Lviv.
He is one of the founders of semiotic abstraction and assemblage in Ukrainian art. He combines etching and linocut techniques, incorporating collage elements, and employs the juxtaposition of contrasting tones along with subtle nuances of a single hue’s shades. His paintings are characterized by abstraction and an appeal to archaic symbolism and folk art (the influence of folk embroidery is palpable in his compositions).
Mykhailo’s irrepressible desire to become an artist did not fade even after six unsuccessful attempts to enter an art university. Anyone else might have grown disillusioned and abandoned their dream, but not Krasnyk. At first, he worked as a laboratory assistant at the museum, where his firsthand encounter with artworks—rather than through reproductions—left him deeply stunned. Following the advice of experienced colleagues, he eagerly began studying specialized literature. The next stage was serving as an assistant conservator, followed by professional training and attaining full qualification as a conservator.
Mykhailo Krasnyk: “My entire art comes down to a few right people, a few right situations, and the rest depends on you—how you handle it, how you live your life. Maybe it’s for the best that I didn’t get into the institute, because it didn’t take up my time… For me, the main thing is doing what I feel. I could do what I don’t want to do. But there is such a thing as conscience. You can deceive someone else, but I would know that I wasn’t doing what I wanted, but rather pandering to market demands. So would I be sinning against myself in art, which for me is the only pure thing beyond everything else? In the only sphere where I feel independent? Because I am dependent on time, on work, on circumstances, on the tram… But in art, I am independent. Here, you can allow yourself anything. Here, you do whatever you want. And how others perceive it is another matter entirely. You can’t please everyone… At first, I painted ‘normal’ still lifes and thought that if a neighbor came over, and I painted an apple, and she said, ‘Oh, it looks so alive!’—that would be the peak of my art, I would stop there, and I wouldn’t need anything else. Well, I painted it, well, she came, well, she said it… And I felt that this wasn’t enough for me. No matter how beautifully I could replicate nature, I still couldn’t ‘outdo’ it; I could only draw closer to it…”
